Even Ethan Hunt, for whom no mission is impossible, hasn’t managed a box office miracle this year in India — a market where Hollywood once soared on the success of Avengers: Endgame, Oppenheimer, and Barbie.
Hollywood faces an uphill task to regain its hold after losing nearly Rs 200 crore in India last year. Its business in the country stood at Rs 1,139 crore in 2023.
While new English releases Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Final Destination: Bloodlines have provided a modest boost, they’ve yet to wow local audiences.
Popular franchise but modest gains
Released on May 17, the eighth Mission: Impossible film earned Rs 70.39 crore in about 10 days. It’s expected to enter the Rs 100-crore club — a first for a Hollywood film this year. Its predecessor, Dead Reckoning Part One, had collected Rs 67 crore in its first week and reached a lifetime total of Rs 120 crore.
Final Destination: Bloodlines, marking the franchise’s return after 14 years, earned a decent Rs 42.5 crore in 11 days. It released a day before MI 8 in India.
Together, the two films have earned Rs 112.89 crore. While they offer a flicker of hope, recent releases are far from the thunderous impact of past hits like Endgame.
Endgame still holds several records in India — highest Hollywood grosser, biggest opener, and fastest to cross Rs 100 crore, with a lifetime business of Rs 400 crore.
Hollywood's peak
Hollywood's business peaked in India in 2019 with Rs 1,595 crore, according to an analysis by media consulting firm Ormax.
The largest chunk came from Endgame but other movies including The Lion King with a century at the India box office and other successes like Spider-Man: Far From Home, Captain Marvel, Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, and Aladdin all contributed to the record numbers.
Strong numbers continued in 2022 and 2023 when English movies in India collected Rs 1,230 crore and Rs 1,139 crore respectively.
When cinemas in 2022 were slowly recovering from the pandemic impact, movies like Avatar: The Way of Water, The Batman, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Jurassic World Dominion kept the cash register ringing.
Then came the Barbieheimer effect with India becoming one of the highest grossing markets for Oppenheimer. The first weekend numbers of the Christopher Nolan drama showed that India was just behind the movie's home market North America and the UK. In the opening weekend, Oppenheimer had collected $81 million, $13.3 million and $7 million in North America, the UK and India, respectively.
Superhero sheen fading
Hollywood’s heavyweights are swinging but still falling short due to franchise fatigue and lesser craze for superhero films. Marvel Studios' this year releases Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts signal that Indians are getting pickier about which cape-wearing adventures are truly theatre-worthy. While Thunderbolts collected Rs 19 crore in India, Brave New World's earnings stood at Rs 18.45 crore.
According to the Ormax analysis, the impact of superhero releases on Hollywood’s India earnings has been diminishing. Before the pandemic, a single Marvel mega release could contribute 20–30 percent of the entire annual Hollywood box office in India. But after 2020, this trend saw a visible decline.
Spider-Man: No Way Home, released in December 2021, was a notable exception — with collections of around Rs 250 crore in India — that single-handedly buoyed Hollywood’s 2021 recovery.
However, other Marvel titles like Eternals, Black Widow, and Shang-Chi managed only modest numbers in India.
In addition, the share of the superhero genre in the English movie business in India saw a steep decline from a peak of 50 percent in 2018-19, to less than 25 percent in 2023. It improved marginally last year with a 27 percent share.
A tall task
It seems to be a tall order for English movies to recover from the slump they faced last year, when their box office performance in India hit a post-pandemic low of Rs 941 crore. Its slow business also affected the revenue of India's top multiplex chain PVR Inox, which reported a loss of Rs 280 crore in FY25.
The English box office for PVR Inox declined by 28 percent to Rs 194.5 crore in the last financial year due to the Hollywood strike, which resulted in a 6 percent drop in the number of English movies.
The multiplex chain's Executive Director, Sanjeev Kumar Bijli pointed out that fewer people came due to the limited number of releases and very few English blockbusters.
"We did not have films like Oppenheimer and Barbie which are important for our chain."
Both footfalls and market share for Hollywood movies have significantly dropped in India.
Hollywood's share shrank to 8 percent last year, which is the lowest ever — down from around 15 percent in 2019.
This also mirrors the declining footfalls, with numbers dropping from the peak of 9.8 crore in 2019 to 4.8 crore in 2023 to 3.8 crore last year, making 2024 one of Hollywood’s weakest years in India.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
Find the best of Al News in one place, specially curated for you every weekend.
Stay on top of the latest tech trends and biggest startup news.
